


Faces Wrought on Skin

by osmalic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Post - Half-Blood Prince
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-12
Updated: 2006-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osmalic/pseuds/osmalic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus seeks Dumbledore's killer, then finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faces Wrought on Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabiji](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tabiji).



It was Draco Malfoy who handed him a wand.

"You are an idiot," Remus Lupin told him in a low voice. "I can take that wand and kill you now."

The boy did not move, yet Remus could see how he hunched smaller still in his oversized coat. Lips curling in disgust, Remus snatched the wand from his hand and pointed it between the boy's eyes, concentrating; he could hear other Death Eaters around them snatching their own wands and whipping it to their direction. He did not care.

Draco Malfoy did not blink.

"No words," Remus whispered, keeping his eyes trained to the boy's. Merlin, but he was almost as tall as Remus now. "I can kill you with just a thought. Your blood killed my friend."

"Your friend was my blood too," Draco Malfoy replied bravely although his voice wavered. "I understand vengeance."

Remus had no time to puzzle this out when a familiar voice said: "No, Draco. You do not know vengeance."

The Death Eaters turned to the source, a figure of a man standing at the thin slit of light from the outside world. Remus' grip on the wand tightened, yet he inched closer to the boy.

"You do not know vengeance," Severus Snape repeated, "because you only know obedience." Yet his eyes never left Remus Lupin. "Leave us," he ordered the spectators, "and take the boy with you."

* * *

"How high have you risen?" Remus asked bitterly once they were alone, only to give a sharp bark of laughter. "Or should I ask: How low have you sunk?"

"I can see how much damage your capture has done," Severus sneered, "now that you're threatening a boy without protection."

"He gave me the wand so it would amuse you and your friends to play with me while I am desperate enough to try and kill them," Remus said evenly. "Does the boy only know that violence?"

"The _boy_ has known nothing else since then," Severus snapped back. "Remove that wand from my face. I have no wish to hurt you."

Again Remus had to laugh hysterically, the effort making an ugly scratching sound in his throat. He did not lower the wand. "So you only wish to talk? I think I'm more comfortable this way. Speak as you would."

"As you wish." Severus peered at him. In the darkness of the room, only a sliver of light from a distant lamp entered the thin streak of space that cannot even be called a window. Remus wondered how he looked now: scraggly and thin, almost as worse as the mornings after the full moon. In the small light, surrounded by darkness, he thought painfully: _Severus is cold and beautiful._ He hated himself. "You were not to be given a wand at all, you know. It is Draco you have to thank for that; his wretched pleas convinced the Dark Lord to give you a chance to defend yourself."

"I should have thanked him properly," Remus growled, "starting with a _Crucio_ and ending with _Avada Kedavra._ And to you—" He stopped.

But Severus asked, "—to me, yes?"

And Remus realized he had nothing to lose so he answered: "I would kill you. Torture you. With or without a wand. With my bare hands, wrapped around your throat—"

"I have never thought of you as a pugilist," Severus interrupted smoothly, and it was obvious in the darkness that he smiled, "yet your threats are strangely persuasive. I am convinced of your abilities. You have my applause on that."

"I told you to speak as you would. I did not tell you to flatter me with meaningless words." Taking one step closer to his enemy, Remus indicated to the wand he held. "Kill me now, you coward, but by god I swear I'll take you down."

There was a grotesque twitch on Severus' shoulder; even the dim light could not hide it. "You will kill a traitor with a wand that your enemy gave you?"

"I will simply kill a traitor. It does not matter by which means."

"Ah. Of course. Seeking to be the hero now that none would protect you?" The sneer was clear in Severus' voice. "How pathetically Gryffindor of you."

"Pathetic," Remus grit out, "is taking too long to kill your ex-lover."

There was a flash, a shout: _"Stupefy!"_ before Remus randomly pointed to the direction of the voice and fired his own spell. He heard Severus curse and he laughed, feeling the effects of the spell immobilizing him, his wand-arm raised, his legs entangled, and a wide smile on his face.

* * *

Severus leaned close to him and it was with frustration that Remus saw that his freezing spell had hit some of the target: some strands of Severus' hair had turned to icicles. As the man randomly poked him with his wand, Remus thought: _I would have killed him with my hands._

He wanted to, oh how he wanted to! God knows he'd thought about it often enough for the past year: wrapping his fingers around the man's throat, pressing his thumbs against the hollow space right above the collarbones. It had made him sick, but Remus thought that if his were the hands that caressed the traitor's skin, then the same hands would seek justice and kill that man. Remus wanted Severus dead.

Severus Snape killed Dumbledore. Severus Snape betrayed them all.

Severus Snape had betrayed Remus more.

"The problem with you, Lupin," Severus said, "is that you believe too much on good and break down when it fails you. It happened when Black betrayed the Potters, didn't it? And it happened again when you learned that Pettigrew was alive and deceived you all. What you should learn, sometimes, is to see things in a bigger perspective and know when you don't stand a chance."

Severus was still talking and it was difficult to listen when one was uncomfortably lying on the dungeon floor, stunned by a child's spell. It was disgusting.

"You have something to live for. There would have been nothing here for you except death. You _did_ expect that, didn't you? That clue was not meant to be found."

The man's preaching tone gave Remus enough motivation to snarl, cursing the hex with his every being until he could produce a small growl, yet only his eyes managed to move as it followed the pale man slinking around the werewolf to check his robes and pockets; his long fingers brushed against an immobilized thigh, then higher to his hips, his chest, his jaw...Remus would have closed his eyes—in lust or in revulsion, he did not know—but all he could do was watch Severus, tensing as the fingers trailed over his neck, halting at the wildly beating pulse as if hesitating, and finally touching his lips.

"Do not seek to kill me again," his capturer said harshly, "or you'll only prove yourself inhuman to peering eyes. Petty vengeances have no place in war. Damn yourself if you will, I have no care, but if you look for me again, _I will not hesitate to kill you."_

For a moment, Remus stopped struggling and simply stared at Severus. _What is he saying?_

And when Severus spoke again, it was with some sadness. "You have something to live for now, someplace and someone to return to. Let this be a lesson to you." The dull tip of Severus' wand pressed against Remus' temple and he leaned close so his lips touched Remus' ear. "You fancied yourself a professor, Lupin. I will have you teach this lesson to others."

There were no whispered incantations, no murmured spells. Remus felt the tingling sensation start from his toes, moving upwards slowly, like an itch that could not be scratched. He would have screamed, except his eyes were closed.

He thought he heard Severus speak: "Take him with you."

* * *

And when he opened it again, there was a rectangular light that indicated an open cell door. Testing his limbs, Remus realized he was not at all surprised that the wounds he suffered during his capture were still there, yet he was startled at how refreshed he felt despite the supposed days he had stayed there. He was still reveling in his discovery when something clattered at his side; it was his own wand.

"You won't need the other one," said a voice from behind him, making Remus snatch and point the wand at the direction.

Draco Malfoy sat hunched in the darkest corner, one hand raised against his eyes to watch Remus with a curious expression. For the first time, Remus realized that the oversized coat and stylish cuts of his clothes and boots only hid the boy's now-gaunt figure. His blond hair, often slicked back, now seemed more in disarray than in previous years. He had certainly changed in appearance, especially taking after his father with the grimly determined lines on his face

"The other wand," the boy went on to explain, eyes kept trained on Remus. "It's defective. You'll need your own."

"Where are the others? Is this a game?"

The boy shook his head. "No game. They've gone, left for the night, for their respective families. They can't gather in big crowds, you know, and they can't apparate from the same place at the same time. Severus placed me on guard. To work on redeeming my status for the Dark Lord. Fuck that now. You have to leave."

"Why are you doing this?" Remus whispered, finding himself more bewildered at every turn.

The boy—Malfoy—shrugged, looking away. "Severus was right. Obedience was the only choice for me."

"And now?" Remus held his breath.

Malfoy raised his eyes and stared, beyond Remus' wand and into his eyes. "I have someone I want to protect. The choices I make are now not my own, but also theirs." For a moment, there was raw pain in the boy's eyes but it quickly died down, leaving nothing. "Will you let me go with you?"

"Why should I believe you?"

"You don't have to," Malfoy replied flatly. "You point your wand at me every single step of the way. I don't care. I choose this. It's not your business."

"If you ask me to take you," Remus said sharply, "then it is so my business. You have people you want to protect, but if you leave for your protection and they get hurt, you'll only be selfish."

For a long moment, the boy remained silent and simply stared down at his knees. It was with a blank voice that he finally spoke, "Falling from the Dark Lord's grace is easy to do and so hard to rekindle, but it's harder for someone who never approved of his ideas in the first place. In this...in this betrayal, I can bargain for her life and her safety in another way." It was a hard admission, Remus knew, and the boy immediately turned his gaze and demanded harshly, "Does it fit your requirements?"

"Quite." Putting down the wand to rest his arm, Remus allowed himself to be careless and turned his back to the boy. Nothing happened. He shuddered. "Let's go."

* * *

An hour of wretched walking found them before a small river that they would need to cross in order to escape the anti-apparition wards. Remus was getting ready to wade when he realized that Malfoy had stopped and turned back to the direction they came from. The older man froze, watching in apprehension as the boy chewed his lower lip, in deep thought.

Finally, Malfoy turned away. When he spoke it was so soft, Remus almost didn't catch the words. "It's always hard to leave, no matter their unkindness and cruelty."

Remus was skeptical but he was not Draco Malfoy. Clearly their sentiments lay on different paths. "It's the first step that's hardest."

"Quite." And the boy gave him a small smile that almost changed his face.

Suddenly, Remus was barraged with so many memories of another boy with large hooked nose, greasy hair, and long pale fingers—the boy who turned into a man who both frustrated and delighted Remus. Who pointed his wand at Remus' face and said, _"You have something to live for now, someplace and someone to return to,"_ and _"Take him with you."_ They look nothing similar, but somehow, Remus had never seen Draco Malfoy seem so much like Severus Snape.

With as much a smile he could muster for a former enemy, Remus placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and said, "Draco, as long as you have someone to return to, you can do anything."

The boy— _Draco_ —did not turn to him, but the tension eased from his shoulders. Wordlessly, he waded onto the river without as much as a splash. It was a clear indication that he was ready to cross, and Remus did not want to be left behind.


End file.
